


The Last Word

by whelvenwings



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Arguing, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Jo Harvelle & Dean Winchester Friendship, Jo Ships It, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Nerd Dean, Philosophy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 23:32:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10056995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whelvenwings/pseuds/whelvenwings
Summary: If a tree falls in the middle of a wood, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Dean says yes, and Cas says no - and both of them are determined to have the last word on the argument. But at some point, it stops being about winning the debate, and starts being about the fact that neither of them are quite ready to stop talking to each other - though telling someone you like them isn't nearly so easy as telling them you completely disagree with their philosophical stance...





	

“Dean, this is Cas - Cas, Dean,” Jo said, calling over the thudding music in the bar where they were standing, propping up the bar. She had a hand on Dean’s shoulder, and she gave him a little shake. “I’ve been meaning to introduce you guys since forever. I just know you’re gonna get on great. Cas, Dean likes philosophy, and psychology - that kind of thing!”

“I’m, uh - an armchair philosopher at best,” Dean said, throwing Jo a look that said, as clearly as he could without words, _don’t play me up too much._ Cas, the guy standing in front of him, was quite clearly out of Dean’s league - tall, lean, with the looks of an Athenian hero and the expression of a Roman statue, chiselled and unsmiling. Dean took a hefty swig of his drink, and smiled charmingly.

 _Well,_ he thought, _you never know until you’ve tried._

“So, are you a Freud or a Jung kind of guy?” he said. Jo clapped his shoulder and moved off, evidently satisfied with the opener and feeling as though her introductory duties were complete. Dean watched after her for a second as she went, taking her social skills with her.

It wasn’t that Dean was _bad_ in social situations - it was only that when there was just him and an undeniably cute guy, things tended to get a little… flustered _._ Jo, on the other hand, was perfectly at ease, and good at smoothing over the stupid things his runaway mouth tended to say -

“You can go and talk to her instead,” said Cas, and Dean started and looked back at him guiltily. Cas’ expression was unreadable, watching him watch after Jo. “Please, feel no obligation to enjoy my company.”

Dean blinked. Cas raised his eyebrows.

“I’m, uh, I’m - uh,” Dean said, wrongfooted. “I was just -”

“And I think - Jung,” Cas said, cutting through his fumbling. “Freud’s theories are too rooted in misogyny and phobia to be of any interest beyond the influential and contextual, for me.”

Dean swallowed.

 _This is going great,_ said a little voice in his head.

“Right,” he said. “Jung. Contextual. Yeah.”

Cas took a long sip of his drink, and looked out across the bar - probably hoping to see someone else he knew, Dean guessed, whom he could pretend to need to talk to, and escape this conversation.

The opportunity presented itself, and -

“You can go and talk to anyone else instead,” Dean said, before he could think twice. The sarcasm came out honey-sweet. “Please, feel no obligation to enjoy my company.”

Cas looked back at him, and for the first time, Dean saw a spark of interest in his eyes. Those full lips quirked upwards in a dry little smile.

“Touché,” Cas said.

*

“No,” Dean said, his hand tight around his glass, shaking his head with certainty. He was sitting at a corner table, tucked away, with Cas sitting at right-angles to him and watching him intently. “Nope. That argument just came straight out of your ass.”

Cas’ eyes were bright; he smiled, and shook his head.

“A colourful response, but not a particularly good one. Do you have a reason for rejecting my point?”

“Yeah, man. The reason is, _my ass._ ”

“Oh, _your_ ass, now. You know, perhaps you’re more into Freud than you thought.”

Dean had opened his mouth to respond, when Jo slipped into the seat beside him. She had a strange expression on her face as she looked at them both, half-smirking and sharp-eyed - as though there was a joke that only she’d understood.

“ _Hey_ ,” she said, drawing out the single syllable, so that it was long and a little awkward. Dean looked at her, and then shared a glance with Cas - a glance that said, _what?_ And a response that said, _I have no idea._

Dean felt a little warmth in his chest. That moment between them had felt conspiratorial, almost.

“Sooooooooo,” Jo said. “You two seem to be getting along well.” She raised her eyebrows at the pair of them, each in turn. Dean arranged his features into scepticism, and looked over at Cas - he, too, was making a dissenting expression.

“Getting on?” Dean said incredulously. “Please.”

“Our conversation has not exactly been harmonious,” Cas agreed.

“He’s got no idea what he’s talking about, most of the time -”

“He keeps trying to convince me he’s right by referencing bodily parts.”

“If he’d pull his head out of his _bodily part,_ then I wouldn’t have to reference it.”

“Yeah, so, you guys have been here for three hours,” Jo interrupted them, resting her cheek on her hand, leaning one elbow on the table. “You haven’t said a single word to anyone else all evening. Like, you guys do realise that when I introduced you, there were literally no strings attached, right? I didn’t rope you together or anything. Not a binding contract. You’re free to talk to other people. There’s still time.”

 _Three hours?_ Dean frowned, and looked down at his watch.

“It can’t have been three hours,” Cas said.

“Actually, it kinda can,” Dean said, lifting his wrist and twisting it so that Cas could see. “Unless you also want to deny the blatant fact of the _time,_ as well as every other provable thing you’ve tried to ignore this evening.”

“Dean, Benny’s here, and Ash…” Jo interposed; Dean nodded.

“Yeah, yeah - I’ll be there in a sec,” he said. “I just - can you believe this guy thinks that if a tree falls in the middle of the wood, and no one’s there to hear it, it _doesn’t_ make a sound?”

“Of course it doesn’t,” Cas said.

“But, _dude._ ”

“Dude, what?”

Dean grinned at the way that Cas said _dude._ Somehow, it put him in mind of an upper-class housewife holding a dirty towel.

“Just - _dude._ ”

“Very convincing. Would you like to go back to the ass line of debate? I found it more persuasive.”

“I’m sure you’d like it if we went back to talking about my ass,” Dean said, “but I’m trying to resolve a serious philosophical issue, here.”

He winked, and Cas rolled his eyes.

Jo cleared her throat. She was staring between them, still looking as though there was something immensely funny happening that only she understood. Dean and Cas, made suddenly aware of her presence again, were both silent - waiting on her verdict.

“You’re idiots,” she said. “But if you want to spend all night driving each other up the wall, who am I to stop you.”

She left.

They spent the whole of the rest of the night, of course, driving each other up the wall.

*

Dean’s phone beeped. He glared at it.

He was sitting in the library, trying to do some reading - his Math class wasn’t promising a passing grade, this semester, and he needed to pull it up. And he _would,_ if he could only stop being _distracted._

He sighed, and picked up the phone.

_> > _ **_Cas_ ** _: I told you. Sound is a sensory experience. With no one there to hear it, the tree vibrates air particles. It makes no sound._

Dean rolled his eyes, and shook his head.

 _sound IS the vibration of air particles,_ he typed back, and hit Send.

Almost immediately, his phone went off again.

_> > _ **_Cas_ ** _: Sound is the vibration of air particles AS PERCEIVED by the human ear._

Dean chewed his bottom lip. Cas did have a point, he thought. But there was no way Dean was letting him have the last word on this one - not after they’d spent all last night arguing about it.

He thought for a moment, and then began to type again.

_not just the human ear. anything able to interpret the vibration right? so what about the ears of squirrels? rabbits? what about bees?_

He threw the phone away when he’d hit Send, determined to get on with his reading.

It beeped.

Dean managed an entire thirty seconds of reading about partial differential equations, before he caved.

_> > _ **_Cas_ ** _: Your argument hinges on bees. I approve wholeheartedly, but I don’t think it’s in the spirit of the thought experiment._

Dean grinned, and laid his phone down.

Thirty seconds later, he’d come up with an answer. He picked it back up again.

*

“Dean, this is getting ridiculous.”

_Beep._

Dean picked up his phone, sent back a quick text, and put it away again.

“Ridiculous?”

“Yes. Like, seriously ridiculous.”

_Beep._

He reached for his phone -

“Dean!”

\- and curled his fingers closed, and looked up, and met Jo’s eyes. They were sitting in their usual spot in the downtown burger diner they liked to go to every Friday, sipping shakes while they waited for the food to arrive.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just -”

“Cas,” Jo finished for him. She rolled her eyes, and then looked out over the diner’s shabby interior. “Have you… you know… told him?”

“Told him what?” Dean said. His hands itched without something to do; he began to fuss with the straw of his milkshake.

“Dean. It’s been two weeks and you’re still texting him every minute of the freaking day.”

“Yeah?” Dean speared the cherry on top of his shake with the straw, and submerged it under the cream. “So?”

“So… what do you think that means?”

Dean shrugged.

“Means I haven’t won the argument yet,” he said.

When he looked up, Jo was rubbing one eyebrow with the tip of her finger, her eyes slightly out of focus; it looked almost as though she were trying to see into the far distance, into another dimension - one where presumably, Dean thought, she didn’t have to put up with this sort of thing.

“Dean. You’re going full _Rebel Without a Cause._ ”

“I am _not._ ”

Jo nodded at him definitively.

“You watched that movie every day for six months. This is exactly the same.”

“It’s nothing like it!”

“Oh, no?” Jo said, sipping her milkshake.

“No way. I liked that movie because it was clever, and… you know… James Dean was hot.”

Jo raised her eyebrows pointedly.

“Oh,” Dean said. “Oh, right, I get it.” He pulled a face. “You think I’m doing this because I’m into Cas?”

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. Jo gave a little astonished laugh.

“You’re seriously going to try to tell me that you’re _not_ into Cas?” She gestured with her straw. “Go on, then. Convince me.”

Dean swallowed.

“I’m just _not._ ”

“Sure, uh huh, right. You’ve texted him twenty-three times in the last half an hour. That’s literally almost every minute.”

“Every minute and twenty seconds,” Dean muttered. The math studying had paid off, just barely. “You were counting?”

“It’s something to do. I was hoping to make it to a nice round fifty before the hour was up.” She shook her head. “You’re obsessed with the guy, Dean.”

“You know what?” he said, going on the offence. “All this focus on Cas - _what are you doing talking to Cas, why do you keep texting Cas, why are you so obsessed with Cas_ … to be honest, it just makes you sound jealous.” Jo’s mouth dropped open. Dean nodded sadly. “Yeah, weren’t expecting me to notice, huh? But let’s not try to pretend you haven’t been dreaming about his big blue eyes and soulful stare and strong hands and muscular arms, and -”

He cut himself off when he saw the look on Jo’s face.

“Uh huh,” she said. “Yup. It’s definitely me who has the thing for Cas. Look, what’s the big deal? So you like him, so what? Just ask him out!”

Dean focused for a second on his milkshake, trying to find where the cherry had ended up.

The only problem with that plan, he thought, was the fact that Cas was so incredibly far out of his league that he didn’t stand a chance - there was nothing especially flirtatious about their texts, after all, and Cas hadn’t made any kind of move on him back at the bar. The only way Dean got to keep talking to Cas was by stringing out this stupid argument for as long as he possibly could. And if there was no way he was ever going to get to date Cas, then Dean didn’t want to make things awkward by telling Jo how he felt. If he did, there’d always be that look in her eyes whenever Cas came up in conversation - or, worse, when they were at the same party or night out. Dean had to convince Jo that he didn’t have any feelings for Cas - aside from mild annoyance, and a determination to beat him in an argument - just so that he could potentially hang out with Cas in peace, some time, without Cas or anyone else ever needing to find out that Dean had a small crush.

Very small. Tiny. Negligible, really.

“Listen,” Dean said aloud. “I’m just trying to get the last word. Look.” He picked up his phone and pulled up his messages with Cas, and turned the screen to face Jo. “Does this look like the conversation of two people who are into each other?

Jo squinted, and pulled the phone out of Dean’s hands so that she could read it. He let her, knowing exactly what she’d see:

_< < _ **_Dean_ ** _: does_

_> > _ **_Cas_ ** _: doesn’t_

_< < _ **_Dean_ ** _: does_

_> > _ **_Cas_ ** _: doesn’t_

_< < _ **_Dean_ ** _: does_

_> > _ **_Cas_ ** _: doesn’t_

_< < _ **_Dean_ ** _: does_

_> > _ **_Cas_ ** _: doesn’t_

_< < _ **_Dean_ ** _: does_

_> > _ **_Cas_ ** _: doesn’t_

“Oh, God,” Jo said. “How long have you been - is this still about whether or not the tree makes a sound?”

Dean coughed.

“Maybe,” he said. He pulled the phone back, quickly texted out _does,_ and sent it.

 _Beep,_ went his phone, almost immediately. Dean didn’t open it; he set it down on the table, and repressed his smile.

“See?” he said to Jo. “All I want is the last word in this argument. That’s all.”

*

“You’ve reached Castiel.”

“Dude. What kind of greeting is that? Say ‘hello’ like a normal person.”

“… hello, Dean.”

Dean, sitting in his car at the side of the road, pressed the phone closer to his ear.

“How, uh… how are you?” he said.

“It just happens.”

Dean frowned.

“Huh?”

“You asked how I am. How is it that I am? And I said, it just happens.”

Dean let out a laugh, and shook his head.

“Asshole. You never answer anything straight.”

“There’s an obvious joke there, which I will refrain from making.”

Dean smiled. His car ticked as she cooled, the night wide and open around her.

“Why did you call, Dean?”

Dean opened his mouth, and then closed it. The truth was, he wasn’t sure; he’d been driving back from out of town, a visit to his brother, and suddenly he’d been seized by a kind of reckless bravery - and, even though it was almost two in the morning, a kind of certainty that if he rang, he’d get through.

“Wanted to ask if you knew the time,” he said lightly.

Cas was silent for a moment; when he spoke, there was a smile in his voice.

“You’d do better to ask your watch.”

“Nah. My watch is pretty bad at answering the phone.”

Another pause - not an uncomfortable one, Dean hoped.

“Hey, Cas?”

“Yes, Dean?”

“It’s a nice night out.”

There was the sound of movement; Dean imagined Cas getting up, twitching his curtains aside, and looking up at the sky, at the empty street.

“Are you out there in it?” Cas said.

“Always am, somewhere.”

“Except if you were in here with me. Then you wouldn’t be.”

Dean paused to consider that fully. The silence drew out as his imaginings coloured themselves in beautifully.

“Dean?”

“Yeah, Cas?”

“Are you alone?”

Dean paused. He looked at the empty car - looked at the empty spaces between his fingers - looked up and out, at the empty sky.

“Define… alone.”

“Is there - anyone with you?”

Dean shrugged.

“You,” he said.

Silence, again. Warmer than before.

“Hey, Cas?”

“Yes, Dean.”

“Why - why don’t you think the tree makes a noise?” he said. He heard Cas huff a little breath of laughter, and cleared his throat. “I mean - I mean I know _why,_ but like - why do you like the idea?”

“Like it?” Cas seemed taken aback by the thought.

“Sure.”

“I don’t know that I do like it. I just think it’s right.”

Dean frowned, and shifted in his seat.

“If you don’t like it, why would you let it be right?”

Cas was quiet.

“I suppose because I don’t think I have the power to change it,” he said, after several long moments. “It simply is.” He breathed out. “And there are… elements… of the idea, that are likeable.”

“Yeah?”

“Well… if there is no one there to hear a tree fall, it makes no sound. If there is no one there to… see a star fall, it sheds no light. Things are just sequences of particles moving over and around each other, until we perceive them - and form order from them, find significance and beauty. Meaning starts and ends with us.”

“Mmmmm,” Dean said.

“You don’t like that?”

“Not so much.”

“You might be fighting a losing battle with the universe, then.”

Dean lifted a shoulder diffidently.

“Maybe,” he said. He wondered if he should hang up. Cas probably needed to go to bed.

Cas, though, didn’t seem to be thinking of sleeping.

“What _would_ you like?” he asked.

Dean let out a breath.

“I think I’d like…” he began, and then frowned, and started again. He’d been thinking about this, on the drive homeward. “I don’t like that meaning only comes from us. I don’t want to be the only thing that brings any significance to all of the things that are going on around us.”

“No?”

“No. I mean, if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, why is no one there? Why aren’t they watching that tree? What if the tree is important, and we don’t know it? What if it’s old, what if it matters, and we aren’t looking. Why can’t it have some… intrinsic… meaning, that it keeps even when it’s forgotten about?”

He shook his head, and looked out of the windscreen; above him, the stars pinned the sky to the roof of the world, keeping everything in its order.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just - someday, I’m not gonna be here. You’re not gonna be here. Someday, none of us are going to be here. And it won’t have mattered at all. None of this, all the pain and the happiness, all the - the _shit_ that we go through as humans - none of it will matter anymore. Because no one will be there to hear the sound. And I don’t like that so much.”

There was a long pause. Dean used it to think about how stupid it was for him to bare himself, his thought process, like this - to a person he rarely agreed with, and had a crush on, who didn’t like him back.

“Maybe the universe will remember us,” Cas said. Dean gave a soft little snort.

“What, you and me?”

“Well, I meant humanity as a whole. But I suppose - humanity could mean you and me.”

“The universe has no parts to remember us with,” Dean said.

“For now, it has us,” Cas said. “Maybe when we’re gone, it’ll have something else.”

“Mmmmm.”

“Do you like that more?”

“Yeah. I like that more.”

“I’m glad. I like it, too.”

They stayed on the line for a few minutes longer, not talking. When Dean started up his car again, Cas rang off.

Dean wasn’t sure who that gave the last word to - Cas, for speaking; himself, for starting the car; or Cas, again, for hanging up. He wondered if it mattered.

He drove home, and wondered if the universe was using him to watch, and remember.

*

Dean walked into the burger diner the next Friday night, to find that the usual booth already had two occupants. One, looking smug and pleased with herself enough to earn the tautology, was Jo. The other, wearing an expression that was distinctly more confused, was -

“Cas,” Dean said blankly. He and Jo were sitting on the same side of the booth; when Dean slid opposite them, Jo stood up.

“Alright then,” she said. “You guys just have a nice dinner tonight, OK? I would say it’s on me, but hey, I’m a student. So have a great night on yourselves. And if you love me, you’ll actually get whatever is happening between you two sorted.” She began to walk away, still talking. “I mean, it’s asking a lot, since you’re both pretty far up your own - what was it - _bodily parts,_ but a girl can dream.” She was threading her way through the tables, calling back to them, drawing attention from the whole diner - her voice carrying over the clatter and chatter. “I mean, maybe you could start with not talking about freaking trees in the wood for once. Just an idea, you know, I wouldn’t want to step on your toes.”

At the door, she turned, and gave them a smile and a wave.

“Bye!” she called, and was gone.

Dean and Cas both stared after her for several long seconds.

Dean turned back to face Cas first, and watched him staring after Jo a little longer. When he did look round, Cas raised an eyebrow.

“Please… feel no obligation to enjoy my company,” Dean said, and Cas nodded.

“Good,” he said. “So, I came here under the impression that I would be joining a large party of people.”

_Damn it, Jo._

“Guess it’s a party of two,” Dean said, trying for a smile. His heart was thudding in his chest, making him feel young and nervous and stupid. There was nothing for his hands to do, so he clasped them on the table top.

“My favourite kind,” Cas said, with just the right balance of irony and sincerity. He looked at Dean, and his gaze was different, definitely, to how it had been the last - and first - time they’d seen each other, almost two months ago. It was warmer; more respectful, and closer, somehow. Cas felt closer.

Or maybe that was just the booth they were sitting in. Dean had never considered it to be an intimate space, before, but having his knees brush against Cas’ beneath the table was making him blush like a maid. It was amazing, he thought, how a whisper of one person’s touch could be more exciting than another person’s naked body on your own. It was amazing, and it was terrible, because it made that whisper worth the world - it weighted the nearly-weightless too heavily.

Cas was watching him, apparently as content with the silence as Dean; his eyes weren’t leaving Dean’s face.

The touch of his knee, the subtle graze, became a soft press.

“Cas -” Dean said, hushed.

“Hey! What can I get you guys to drink?” said a new voice, peppy and unfamiliar; Dean sat back in his seat so fast that he cracked his elbow against the table.

“Um,” he said, trying to read Cas’ expression out the corner of his eye, and having little success. “Um, can I get - just a chocolate shake?”

“Two,” Cas said, and the waiter nodded, smiling in a glazed way, and moved off.

Dean looked back at Cas.

“Anyway,” he said. “Uh… yeah.”

He didn’t quite dare to move closer again, to look needy enough to want the press of Cas’ leg back against his own. It had probably been accidental.

He picked at an imaginary spot on the tablecloth. When he looked back up at Cas, he didn’t know what to say. Awkwardness had forced its way between them like a wedge; the silence, now, was one full of questions. Dean picked the one he wanted to ask most, in that moment.

“Look,” he said, “do you wanna get out of here?”

“Out?”

“Yeah. It just feels a bit -”

“Weird?”

“Yeah. We could go for a drive, if you wanted, or something…”

He smiled as Cas nodded, and raised his hand to grab the waiter’s attention.

“Hey, buddy, can we get those shakes to go?”

*

This was better, Dean thought. This was how it should be. Not in a grubby little diner, surrounded by tired wait staff and the scent of food - no, it was better out here. In his car, with the air pushing through the open windows and tousling their hair, and the road flat and wide below them, and the starry sky above. And Cas drinking his milkshake through the straw with his lips pursed as though for a kiss, his t-shirt tight to his arms. And Dean’s hands on the steering wheel, shaking with exhilaration and love for the moment.

This was _better._

He drove them out beyond the city limits, heading onto the dark and quiet roads.

When he pulled up on one side, eventually, it could have been in the same place as where he’d stopped before to make the call to Cas. He wasn’t certain; it was hard to tell in the dark. It _could_ have been, and that was the important thing.

He turned off the engine.

“I’ve never driven anywhere like that,” Cas said. Dean turned to look at him, and for a moment they only grinned and stared at each other, riding the adrenaline spike of speed and togetherness.

“I like going fast sometimes,” Dean said.

Cas took a sip of his milkshake.

“Not always, though,” Dean added.

“Some things are better slow,” Cas agreed.

Dean wondered if they were both talking about the same thing. Knowing Cas, he could be talking about the milkshake in his hand, or the gentle death of the sun, or anything in between. It was all important to Cas.

He cleared his throat.

“So…” he said.

“Jo seemed to think we had something to talk about,” Cas said. He looked over at Dean, who blinked at him, and then nodded.

“Sure,” he said. “And it wasn’t allowed to be trees.”

Cas dipped his head, smiling dryly.

“It’d serve her right if we didn’t talk about anything,” Dean said. Cas nodded.

“Or perhaps we should _only_ talk about trees,” he said. “Just to really twist the knife.”

“What, like how they make sounds in the woods when they fall?”

“When people are there to _hear_ them, yes -” Cas said.

“Even when they’re not!” Dean insisted. Cas thinned his lips in annoyance; Dean tried his best not to look at them too hard.

“How many times, Dean,” Cas said. “A sound requires two - a maker and a perceiver. A sound can’t happen with just one of them! It’s like - it’s like - one hand trying to clap, or -”

“One person trying to kiss,” Dean said, the words out of his mouth before he’d thought them through.

They shared a glance, and then quickly looked away.

“Yes,” Cas said, his tone striking a minor note, now, rather than major - a little hesitant. “Like a kiss.”

He said the word ‘kiss’ as though it was precious, Dean thought. He found he was struggling a little with breathing, and cleared his throat. It didn’t help overly much.

“Dean…” Cas said, and then stopped. Dean glanced over at him, and he saw it there - a look in Cas’ eyes that said everything Dean didn’t know how to put into words. A look that knew where it needed to be, but not how to get there; a look that wanted, without knowing what was right to take.

“Are you alone?” Cas said - and Dean understood him, this time. _Are you lonely?_

“No,” Dean said. “I’m with you.”

This time, Cas’ smile lacked all dryness, all irony. He looked younger; bright-eyed, hopeful. Dean couldn’t help but reach for him - pull him in with a single light touch on his cheek, that asked, that begged -

They swung in close, close enough to breathe each other’s breath. Cas put his thumb over Dean’s lips, the press of it shuddering through Dean’s entire body; they stared, eyes steady and locked, breath coming a little fast for them both.

Slowly, Cas’ thumb stroked away to the crook of Dean’s mouth.

“Kiss me,” Dean said.

And Cas did.

Perhaps the universe would forget about this night, Dean thought, driving away from the spot later, his lips tasting like another person in the best way. Perhaps, after he was gone, there would be no one left to recall the way Cas felt beside him, or the meaning of the brush of his hand - the beauty and terror of him, a person who could make Dean crumble with a touch. But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter, somehow, if one day it was forgotten. Dean had seen it, Dean had felt it.

For as long as he could be, he was the universe. And he would remember.


End file.
